Silverchair

Press

02-06-2003

The Paradiso - Amsterdam, The Netherlands

By ELINE

Last night
was the best nights of my life. I had never expected it to
be so good. The crowd was great, the band was in a good mood
and everyone was just having fun.

Something
for Kate started the night with some of their best songs,
including Jerry Stand Up and Monsters. The people around me
obviously didn't know them, except for some crazy couple a
few meters next to me. And I was the only one singing along
to their songs. I did feel a bit sorry for them in that way,
and when they started playing the hall wasn't even half full
yet! Anyway they did a great job as a supportact.

Then we
had the usual break. The crew builded up the last few things,
and as soon as the little music intro started the whole crowd
went crazy. When Daniel came on stage, I nearly couldn't breathe.
It was like someone was sqeezing my throat. I tried to sing
along to After All These Years, but I couldn't! I was so hyped
to see him. I just enjoyed the moment and forgot all about
singing along. When the song finished, and Ben and Chris came
on stage, everybody cheered. They played World Upon Your Shoulders,
and at that point you could see who knew Diorama and who didn't.
Some of us were singing along but there were also people who
didn't like it, you could read it of their faces. It was a
great live-version of the song.

Next up
was Emotion Sickness, and I went totally mad. This is one
of my fav Neon Ballroom songs and it was absolutely amazing
to hear it live. At one point Daniel has to sing very high,
and when I thought he couldn't go higher, he did, and he did,
and he did. It was unbelievable; I never knew he was such
a voice-artist. The band was clearly having fun, cause Ben
and Stu were constantly smiling while Chris just rocked one,
like he always does. I already knew that they were going to
do a long version of this song, I was just wondering how,
cause it's such a complex song in a way. It ended up sounding
fantastic. After this song came Without You; this is my fav
Diorama song, so I was thrilled to hear it live. I sang along
every word, and as I looked around me, I saw that I was not
the only one.

Before
they kicked into the next song this is what Dan said: 'This
next song is about fish. You know, fish and other creatures
in the big big ocean......'. And so began Tuna In The Brine.
There was this dude next to me who sang along every word with
his eyes closed, and I could totally imagine what he felt.
This because I felt exactly the same. It just took you away
to some other place, and for a few seconds I felt like I wasn't
standing in the crowd anymore, and that it was just me and
the band. A feeling I shall never forget.

Luv Your
Life was next. Well, what can I say about it? It's a great
tune and everybody do-do-do-ed with Daniel along. When the
song finished, and they wanted to begin with Across The Night,
Daniel again did a little intro. He said that it was about
the night and sleeping and dreaming etc. During the song he
did his own little 'I don't wanna be lonely' jerk off thing,
and pretending holding on a 'baby'. The 'I am god'-pose later
also came along. Once again the band was clearly having fun,
especially Ben since he couldn't stop smiling while playing
this song.

This is
just a little detail, but next to the bottles of water which
standed next to Ben's drumkit, was also a bottle of wiskey.
And the whole band now and then took a zip. Daniel later on
also threw some water in the audience because it was so hot!
The security guards even began sharing water with the crowd
at the front, cause everyone was thirsty. Anyway, next on
was The Greatest View, and needless to say everyone once again
sang along, including me. They did a great job on this song,
even though the performance at the Aria's was better. As soon
as the song had finished, Dan switched guitars and told everyone
to go f*cking crazy on this one. So 'get the f*ck up' and
everyone started jumping around and bumping into eachother.
This made it harder for me to actually listen to the song,
cause I only payed attention to what was happening around
me.

After
this song Dan told us a little story about the contract they've
signed and that they had to do a tour to support their album.
And that a show had to be 57min. at least + encore. He said
something about that during the time they were off stage,
we had to cheer and that they'd come back for the encore.
And then came a little surprise to me. He said that they were
going to play an extra song, cause they were forgotten to
play a few songs. So I started thinking which then? I soon
realised that they hadn't played Ana's Song, my fav silverchair
song, Miss You Love and Paint Pastel Princess. At that point
I really didn't care much cause I was already happy to see
them live! But after the show I was dissappointed that they
hadn't played Ana's Song, it's my fav after all.

When Chris
started playing before the rest of the band, I couldn't believe
it. It was Israel's Son! I never thought I was ever going
to hear this song live. The song is after all almost 9 years
old! It was absolutely amazing to hear it live. As soon as
it ended and Ben started playing his drums, we all knew which
song was next: Anthem for the year 2000. Daniel made us sing
the whole first couplet, and we all went mad. Later on in
the song we had to sing 'We are the youth' so loud that 'the
roof will blow away'. And I believe we almost did; even the
band was amazed to hear how loud everyone sang/screamed.

The
band went off stage, and we all started screaming 'we want
more'. Just like the protocol says. Daniel and Julian came
back on stage and they performed Asylum. How many times haven't
I played that song on my piano, and now I heard it live. Some
people around didn't know it, so they were like 'what's this
song?'. In the meanwhile I sang along to every word Daniel
sang. Amazing. After he finished the song, and Ben and Chris
came back on stage, Daniel did a little rap/poem thing behind
the piano. It was about 'black is death, death is black, sheep
are dead' etc. It was funny to see, even though the lines
weren't that positive. At one point Ben even tried to add
some sort of drumpart, and were Stu and Julian just improvising.
When Daniel was ready and had his guitar he told us another
little story about that he was offered some pills, but that
the fella who seld them only accepted euros, so he called
Melissa to get the euros for him etc. It was hilarious, especially
since he did all of these little voice-tricks. He even rapped
a piece about Melissa driving in her van, getting some euros
for Dan.

After
all of this, they played a song I never expected them to play:
it was One Way Mule. Before the show I was quite dissappointed
that they weren't going to play it live, but when they did
I once again went mad. It was great to hear it live, and it
certainly was one of the highlights of that night. And last
but not least they kicked into The Lever. I had to say that
it sounded live better than on the cd, even though they did
try to fill up the orchestral parts. It sounded harder, tougher,
you know. For the last time everyone started moshing and jumping
around. It was great. After The Lever ended they did some
funky outro thing, with Dan going mad with his guitar and
Ben hitting his drums harder and faster then ever. Dan threw
his guitar in the air, smashed it into Ben's kit, and not
much later the show ended.

I had
one of the best times in my life, and I'm sure I wasn't the
only.

The setlist:

After
All These Years
World Upon Your Shoulders
Emotion Sickness
Without You
Tuna In The Brine
Luv Your Life
Across The Night
The Greatest View
The Door
Anthem For The Year 2000
Israel's Son

Asylum
One Way Mule
The Lever/Jam

By ROBERT

Yesterday me and my brother David had the
most exciting experience and probably the greatest evening
of our lives. I got our tickets in the first two hours after
sales opened on the first of March. That was a good thing…
no, a MOTHERFUCKING BRILLIANT thing to do, because it was
sold out the same day! After All These (4!) Years Without
You in The Netherlands, Silverchair, we were gonna get The
Greatest View Across The Night you guys finally showed up
in our hometown again (last time in Amsterdam was in ’97).
I had a perfect spot on the balcony; perfect view, perfect
sound. And I really didn’t mind missing out on all the
jumping and bumping into each other in the mosh pit.

But,
WOW, what a concert!!! I’ve read a lot of road reports
and now I understand all the used superlatives, because Silverchair
is just so amazingly good at live performance, nothing comes
close to what Ben, Chris and Daniel (+ Julian & Stuart)
achieve together on stage. I’ve heard a lot of stories
about the band breaking up and bandmembers looking bored on
stage, but none of that was to be seen yesterday! Daniel Ben
and Chris were in a euphoric kind of mood. And it was so nice
to see Daniel in such great shape after all he’s been
through, he looked almost as good as he sounded (and you know
he’s the greatest singer in the world). He had both
his nipples pierced, as he showed us during the encore by
taking his shirt off, it looked pretty cool. It was pretty
hot, so I can imagine why he would strip. ;-) He threw some
bottles of water into the public as well. Thanks, Dan!

The concert
started with the instrumental Across The Night tune. Daniel
walked onto the stage together with Julian, one of the keyboardists/backing
vocals. He sang After All These Years with so much feeling
put into it; it was almost too beautiful (if that’s
possible…).

Daniel
didn’t speak at all during the first four songs, but
after Without You, which was one of the highlights of the
night, he said ‘Thank you Amsterdam’. And then
he introduced my favourite Diorama song, Tuna, as a ‘song
about fish and apple-green animals and mammals and the many
wonders of the many oceans of the world.’ Introducing
Across The Night he said: ‘The next song is about the
many splendours of dreaming and slumber. Especially slumber.
Slumber and dreaming, but not necessarily in that order. Yeah,
you know what I’m saying, Amsterdam!’ At one point
he also told us a story about Julian and how they lock him
up in his room every night, on a leash, like a bulldog (‘a
bulldog, if you know what I’m saying’). And he
asked us if we had ‘anything to smoke for later on’
for Julian and to ‘throughout the night, if you’re
feeling charitable, throw something on the stage’, because
‘he’s a lonely boy’ and ‘he needs
to figure it out somehow’.

The Greatest
View was better than I could have ever wished for. When it
was over Daniel said ‘This is pretty short, boys!’
to the other bandmembers and told us a story about signing
a contract which said they ‘had to play for at least
75 minutes plus an encore’ and that they would ‘do
a lotta encore’ (as they did!!!). And then he said something
about them being millionaires and singing songs about it after
getting the money for their signed contracts. Then he said
they weren’t really millionaires, but they would be
after this song; ‘This is the funkiest The Chair ever
yet. So, I know that you guys are lazy and lethargic because
of your activities throughout the day, but all I’m singin’
is; You gotta move your ass, motherfuckers!’ And the
coolest version of The Door was next, with Daniel shaking
his butt and playing the guitar with his teeth.

Singing
along with Anthem was something I had been looking forward
to for a long time as well. Fan-fuckin’-tastic! The
perfect closer was Israel’s Son, which was introduced
as a song from ‘the teenage grunge sensation from down
under’. He told us how he looked back on themselves
in those days and that back in the day they didn’t know
what they were heading, ‘but now that they’ve
made it to the top, we’re gonna make sure this motherfucker
goes down in here! That’s right.’

We applauded
civilised to show our appreciation and waited patiently, as
can be expected from the Dutch, without shouting ‘we
want more’, for we are not in the position to want anything
from this genius rock-formation. Especially not if you have
to pay only 16 lousy euro’s. Then Daniel came back on
stage and sang to us, while keeping beat on his electric piano;
‘Thank you very much
for your kind donation.
Thank you very much
for this lovely nation.’

He sang
Asylum better than ever (I had heard at least 3 recordings
before). After this Daniel shouted some pretty dark shit accompanied
by Ben about ‘black sheets’ (‘trade them
for your soul’), ‘black clerks’ and ‘dead
goats’ (‘take the money and get out!’).
He also told us that we should always tap into our anger,
‘’cause there lies magic’. And then he said:
‘And now we’re gonna play a song that we don’t
usually play, but we forgot songs in our setlist, so we’re
gonna do an extra encore for you boys and girls.’ One
Way Mule was superb; a great headbanging song, too! Compliments
to Ben and Chris for the heavy stuff! Same thing counts for
The Lever. What a great song to end with; they extended it
with a wicked jam. Daniel added some lyrics, stripped, played
the guitar with a bottle and told us a story about him wanting
to buy some pills, which would ‘make a large contribution
to the show in Amsterdam’, but he had to pay them with
euro’s, while he only had dollars. So he had to call
his manager; it was a pretty funny story. And then it was
over. Daniel threw his guitar in the air before smashing it
into a cymbal and Ben threw his drumsticks in the crowd.

Setlist:
1. After All These Years
2. World Upon Your Shoulders
3. Emotion Sickness
4. Without You
5. Tuna In The Brine
6. Luv Your Life
7. Across The Night
8. The Greatest View
9. The Door
10. Anthem For The Year 2000
11. Israel’s Son
Encore:
12. Asylum
13. One Way Mule
14. The Lever
Jam

By G.M

Setlist:

After All These
Years
World Upon Your Shoulders
Emotion Sickness
Without You
Tuna In The Brine
Luv Your Life
Across The Night
The Greatest View
The Door
Anthem For The Year 200
Israel's Son

Asylum
One Way Mule
The Lever/Jam

Silverchair played
an amazing 90 minutes show. They started with a beautiful
version of After All These Years. Next were World Upon Your
Shoulders and a very long version of Emotion Sickness. After
that they played more songs of Diorama. Daniel sang magical
in songs like Across The Night and Tuna In The Brine. Tuna
In The Brine was introduced as a fish who swim in the big
oceans. Daniel said a lot he also drank a lot of alcohol.
He called Amsterdam one of the funniest town in the world
or something like that. When Sliverchair started with The
Greatest View the crowd gone wild. Especially when the started
with their heavier songs like The Door and Anthem For The
Year 2000. He did a solo with his teeth in The Door and during
Anthem For The Year 2000 the crowd sang allong. After Israel's
Son they walked away. Daniel promised us an extra long encore
because they forget some songs (probably Ana's Song and Miss
You Love). They started with Asylum and One Way Mule before
The Lever he took off his shirt, he have nipple rings! He
said: Now you can see how cheap I am. After the very long
amazing version of The Lever they ended. It was a fantastic
show.

Thank You Silverchair

By ERWIN

The night in the Paradiso in Amsterdam with
silverchair was one of the greatest nights of my life. I’ve
never seen before such a great show. ( And I’ve seen
a lot of shows of many bands ). It was 4 years ago that I
saw silverchair live. That show was in the neon ballroom era
and was also in holland, but then in 013 in Tilburg ( my home
town ). That show was also really great but the show of last
night was stunning. I didn’t know what to expect about
it, ‘coz diorama has lots of other instruments playing
along the songs, such as an entire orchestra.

When I arrived at the Paradiso, there was
a long line of people who where waiting to get in. I knew
the concert was sold out but there where so many people, amazing!!!
After a while I was in the building and went directly to the
merchandise, I could finally get my own silverchair stuff,
YES!! I bought the “across the night” tour shirt.
I also wanted the pyjamas but I hadn’t got enough money.
Then I went on to the room where the bands would play that
night.

Something for kate was already playing. I’ve
heard of the band but never heard some music of them. I must
say, it was very nice to see and to hear. The sound also was
great. The halls in Holland always have problems with the
sounds I guess but this time it was really great.

After a while Something for Kate left the
stage. Some guys prepared the stage for silverchair to play.
I knew that Daniel was popular with the girls, I’ve
experienced it a few years ago at the neon ballroom gig in
013. But I never thought that it would be so hectic when Daniel
made his entrance to the stage. The crowd completely went
crazy. Soon I realized then that I stood on the wrong side
of the room, Daniel was at the other side of the room.

I never had thought that they would begin
with “After all these years”, I thought they will
open with across the night, but I liked it, it is one of my
favorite songs of diorama so I tried to sing along. It was
very hard to do that because all the pressing crowd and the
heat. When the song ended, the rest of the members entered
the stage, Ben and Chris took place behind their instruments
and then “World upon your shoulders” kicked of.
At that moment I thought: What a amazing band!!! I’ve
never seen a band performing so good live.

After this song one of my favorite silverchair
songs started, it was “Emotion sickness”. I always
wanted to see that song live, I was very curious about how
they will play it live, but it was really fantastic they even
made it an extended version, which sounded great. You could
see that everyone had fun while playing. After that they played
“Without you”, also one of the greatest songs
of Diorama. With the amazing light show it was really a wonderful
song.

Almost every song on Diorama is a great song,
and also was the next one, “Tuna in the Brine”.
Daniel itroduced it with a litlle story obout fish in the
great ocean and stuff. What Eline ( in another road report
) said is really true, it’s like we where drifting of
to another place.

Then there was “Luv your life”,
which I like very well because I think it’s sounds like
a happy song. It’s very cheerful and especially the
du-du-du thing. The next song where I was waiting for was
also introduced with a short story about dreaming and sleeping.
“Across the night” was finally there. Never thought
Daniel could do a ballet-dance hahaha. It was al very funny
to see, also the rest of the band couldn’t stop laughing.

It was time now for a heavier song, so “The
greatest view” started and when the intro played, the
crowd went completely crazy, they bounced and jumped into
each other. I liked that because it gave me the opportunity
to go further tot the front and get closer to the stage and
Daniel, so I could take better pictures. After this one an
older song came along. “The door”, it was hard
to stay where you are during this song the crowd moved from
one side to the other and even people began to crowdsurf.
After this song Daniel told us a little story about the contract
they've signed and that they had to do a tour to support their
album. And that a show had to be 57min. at least + encore.
But hey we want the money said Daniel, but that money wouldn’t
make them millionaires because they already are hahaha. I
envy the guys because they are 1 year older than me and the
are already millionaires.

Then Daniel said that they will play an extra
song, according to Eline they forgot some songs. So they went
on with the next song, this was the oldest song they played
that night it was “Israel’s son” never thought
that Daniel had so much experience with playing the guitar
in different ways on this song he played the guitar behind
his head and in another song ( I forgot which one ) he played
the guitar with his teeth, I thought wow he’s is really
a great musician. One of the most popular songs I guess because
all the people started to scream and sing along with the first
lyrics. Daniel wanted us to sing as loud as we could. This
song was “Anthem for the year 2000”.

After this song there was a break for the
band and everybody was shouting for more so they came back
for encore. But this time the same as in the beginning Daniel
came alone on stage with one of the keyboard players ( Julian
). They played “Asylum”, I’ve heard this
song once a long time ago so I didn’t remember how it
went also the rest of the crowd didn’t know the song
very well. When the song ended Chris and Ben entered again
the stage and it was now time for some funny stuff. Daniel
improvised I guess some kind of funny song on the piano about
black death, black sheep, death sheep and it went more exciting
and spookier when Ben played some drums and the keyboards
came along.

And there was another improvised songs about
pills Daniel got offered in amsterdam and he had to pay in
euro’s. So Melissa had to get some euro’s. Melissa
driving in her van, driving in her van getting euro’s
for Dan hahahaha.

The next part of the show was really surprising,
I don’t know it was during this song or another but
they played “One way Mule”, a really great song
and I thought that it was during the solo the band improvised
and Daniel stripped during a funky part that was improvised
( maybe it was during Anthem for the year 2000, I forget ).
All the girls went mad when they saw Daniel’s naked
chest with his pierced nipples. Also he sucked the microphone,
which made the crowd even go crazier than before.

Then there was the last song they played at
the show, “The lever”, one of my fav songs to
play myself on the guitar, it sounded really, really great
and heavy. This song was also extended in which Daniel threw
his guitar in the air and smashed it into Ben’s drumkit.
And then Daniel somewhat raped his guitar ( as we call it
in dutch ). Then after this heavy part of the show the band
left the stage and the show was over.

I’m for sure this will remain one of
the best gigs I will ever see in my live, it goes on my list
as one of the greatest shows ever.

Setlist:
After All These Years
World Upon Your Shoulders
Emotion Sickness
Without You
Tuna In The Brine
Luv Your Life
Across The Night
The Greatest View
The Door
Anthem For The Year 2000
Israel's Son